"The starving child whose picture broke your heart when you saw it on a charity website may not be real. Global health researchers say that stock image companies like Adobe are profiting from AI-generated "poverty porn" that non-profits are using to drum up donations. Alenichev and co-authors Sonya de Laat, Mark Hann, Patricia Kingori, and Koen Peeters Grietens recently collected more than 100 AI-generated images from various social media sites such as LinkedIn and X."
"Many of these images, they say, "replicate the emotional intensity and visual grammar of poverty porn and dated fundraising imagery." The term "poverty porn" isn't precisely defined, but generally refers to images or videos that exaggerate poverty or suffering to evoke guilt and drive donations. Concerns about the exploitative use of real imagery go back many years, and have tripped up respected organizations like Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which issued an apology about photo ethics concerns in 2022."
Stock image companies and generative AI have enabled production and distribution of realistic, AI-generated images that mimic exploitative fundraising imagery. Global health researchers collected over 100 AI-generated images from social media platforms such as LinkedIn and X that replicate the emotional intensity and visual grammar of poverty porn. Poverty porn refers to images or videos that exaggerate suffering to evoke guilt and drive donations. Exploitative use of imagery has a history, prompting apologies from organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières in 2022. Academics and advocacy groups flagged biased and abusive AI depictions in 2023, and some nonprofits removed contested AI images following criticism.
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